American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia

This term is introduced in Chapter 5. A burgess was an elected representative from a settlement who joined the governor’s council at an annual assembly. The assembly could make laws, but they did not become official laws until approved by the company. It was the first representative assembly in English America. Morgan uses this term to show how politics worked and how policies and laws were made in the colony, and to emphasize liberalism and equality in the notion that, until the late 17th century, any Virginian could dream of becoming a burgess.

The meaning of the term is introduced in Chapter 7, but the term itself is first used in Chapter 10. Freedmen were those who finished their term of servitude or tenancy then acquired their headright or some land and became a small farmer. Morgan uses this term to distinguish a group of free small landholders from servants still working off their contracts.

This term is introduced in Chapter 5. A headright was 50 acres of land paid to new settlers who came to the colony on their own or to those who paid the transportation costs of another person. The company adopted the headright to give each settler a larger stake in the colony’s success.